In the dead of Night

By  Farid ud-din Attar (Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm), Persian Muslim poet and great Sufi. This thinker is very close to me, its other poems in blog are here, here and here.

In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers.